Congress Upset with RJD as Tussle over Seat Sharing Threatens Alliance in Bihar

Congress managers in Bihar are miffed over an offer of just 5 to 6 seats instead of 10 they demanded, and over RJD declaring candidates on party strongholds. The party high command has directed the 5-member Congress national alliance panel to hold fresh talks with the RJD leaders Lalu Prasad and Tejaswi Yadav on Sunday to defuse the tension.

New Delhi:The Bihar Congress leaders have urged the high command to intervene and save the alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) which has reached a breaking point.

“The RJD seems to be provoking us every day now. First, they questioned our strike rate and offered us only 5, 6 seats instead of the 10 out of 40 we had demanded. Second, they have been unilaterally declaring candidates for the seats that should have come to the Congress. That should not happen when the two parties are negotiating an alliance. So far, we have been showing restraint, but I don’t know for how long we would be able to tolerate it. A give-and-take happens, but it should not mean surrender. We have apprised the high command of the situation and urged them to resolve the crisis quickly,” a senior AICC functionary told ETV Bharat.

Accordingly, the high command has directed the five-member Congress national alliance panel headed by veteran Mukul Wasnik to hold fresh talks with the RJD leaders Lalu Prasad and Tejaswi Yadav on Sunday to defuse the tension, said party insiders. AICC general secretary in charge of Bihar Mohan Prakash is also a member of the alliance panel.

“We hope the seat-sharing is concluded as early as possible. That would be the best course of action for the alliance. I don’t want to say anything else at this point," Congress Legislative Party leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan told ETV Bharat.

According to party insiders, the seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the RJD were progressing normally till last week, but the sudden and unilateral announcement of candidates by the regional party over the past few days led to suspicion in the minds of the grand old party managers. The major tussle between the Congress and RJD is over Purnia, Aurangabad and Begusarai.

The Congress wants to field Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav from Purnia seat after the former MP merged his Jan Adhikar Party with the grand old party but the RJD wants Pappu Yadav to contest from the Madhepura seat instead. Since then, Pappu Yadav has adopted a defiance stand, saying he would 'prefer to die' than quitting Purnia seat.

What further pinched the Congress managers was the fact that RJD recently inducted ex JD-U MLA Bima Bharati and is planning to give her a ticket from Purnia, indicating further trouble for Pappu Yadav. The Congress also wanted the Begusarai seat for AICC functionary Kanhaiya Kumar, a former JNU students union leader, but the RJD supported CPI announced Avadhesh Rai as its candidate, indicating an unease in the INDIA bloc.

Before that, tensions erupted between the Congress and the RJD over the Aurangabad seat, from where the regional party announced an OBC leader Abhay Kushwaha as its candidate. The Congress considered Aurangabad to be a traditional bastion and wanted to field ex-IPS officer Nikhil Kumar from there. Nikhil Kumar had won from Aurangabad on a Congress ticket in 2004 polls.

“The problem is that the RJD is questioning our strike rate, but they forget that in the 2009 national polls, the RJD broke the alliance with Congress unilaterally. Later, they came down from 25 seats in 2004 to just 4,” said a senior AICC functionary. In the 2019 national polls, the RJD failed to win any Lok Sabha seat in the state whereas the Congress won only one seat, Kishanganj against 39 seats for the NDA.

Congress insiders said that in the 2020 assembly polls, the Congress got 70 seats to contest as part of the alliance, out of which 45 were the ones where the RJD had not won in the past 20 years.

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